Students harness the power of technology to address larger issues – Waterbury Republican American

Local high school students are taking their interest in computer coding and using it to bring attention to national and global problems.

Tech-savvy students Vincent Cai of Cheshire High School and Rifat Tarafder of CRECs Academy of Science and Innovation in New Britain recently were recognized for their work in developing apps.

Cai won the 2020 Congressional App Challenge for the 5th Congressional District for his app on gerrymandering and Tarafder was recognized by the lieutenant governors COVID-19 computing challenge as a fan favorite for a ninth-grade submission. Hes now a sophomore.

App challenges or hackathons or hackfests are mix of invention conventions and science fairs, where math, computer codes and science are mixed into a finding a solution for a problem or creating a resource.

While many schools offer computer programming classes, Cai and Tarafder learned on their own the particular programming language they used to develop their web-based apps.

For Cai, his idea for an app on gerrymandering came from an eighth-grade report he did on the topic that involves manipulating electoral boundaries to favor one party.

After taking a computer science class his freshman year, he decided to use his skills from the classroom and skills he learned on his own to delve deeper.

His app, The New Maps Project, is a set of online tools with the goal of combating gerrymandering. It allows anyone to use the app and run a redistricting algorithm in seconds, for any state. It also features a visualizer with an interactive map to see the newly drawn districts, as well as a data store with sample data for algorithm and visualizer input.

The New Maps Project is an innovative application with the mission to combat gerrymandering throughout the country. This app could truly assist state legislatures to draw congressional maps in a fair and nonpartisan way, U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes said in a news release.

There are different types of algorithms and many different approaches to redistricting that are put forth and the district could be redrawn based on a variety of approaches, Cai said. This is just another approach to the problem, another algorithm thats put on the table for people to look at as a potential way of redistricting.

The app took two to three months to create. Although he learned the computer language Java in his computer science class, the app is made using JavaScript, a different computer language he learned on his own.

Tarafder got to work on his app even before he knew the lieutenant governors challenge started. The pandemic was still in its early stages in the United States and Tarafder, who lives in Windsor, wanted to get all of the information about COVID-19 in one place: symptoms, number of cases and resources. It took him about a month to create the app. He created a second version of his app in the fall.

Tarafder described the process of creating apps as cool.

I got to create an idea and then I bring it to life, and I like solving problems, Tarafder said.

His interest in computers was piqued by watching his father, Ash, working and fixing computers as an IT specialist.

Tarafder started learning HTML and Java script on his own online when he was in the fourth grade.

It was kind of hard at first because the whole concept of computer programming was new to me so I had some problems learning but I eventually got it and improved my skills, Tarafder recalled.

At the Academy, hes currently taking Advanced Placement computer science principles, and he took a computer coding class his freshmen year. In addition to his classes, he continues to study other computer languages on his own.

Tarafder also created games in eighth and ninth grade that are available for download on Apple and Googles app stores. Hes not able to post his COVID app with Google and Apple because of restrictions on which COVID apps are available for download. Hes also working on another app to help law enforcement by identifying and reporting cyber crimes on the internet.

The app challenges offer a taste for something new as the experience can open up new fields of study for knowledge-craved students wanting to learn more about computers, from the laptop in the bedroom to the smartphone in their hands

These challenges arent systemic change but they can be very impactful, said Matt Mervis from Skills21 at EdAdvance in Litchfield. They can be impactful on kids and their attitudes and where theyve gone.

The states computer science plan says that all state public schools must provide challenging and rigorous programs of study in computer science across all grade levels. A state board prepared computer science standards and implementation guidelines.

From 2014 to 2018, the interest in computer science classes has been growing exponentially, from 2,662 high school students enrolled across the state to 6,653, according to the state department trend data.

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Students harness the power of technology to address larger issues - Waterbury Republican American